Impact

It's Not Just About the Bang, But the Ripple Effect.

The word impact gets thrown around a lot, but what does it truly mean, especially in a leadership context? For me, it's not always about the flashy wins or groundbreaking disruptions. Real impact often lies in the subtle, consistent choices we make that create a ripple effect over time. Think of it as the compound interest of influence - steady, strategic, and ultimately transformative.

Impact as a Marathon, Not a Sprint

• 🎯 Strategic foresight: Set long-term goals and consistently work towards them.

• 📈 Invest in growth: Nurture your team's potential and foster a culture of mentorship.

• 🥷 Challenge the status quo: Focus on outcomes (not output) and pushing boundaries.

• 🕶️ Cultivate inclusivity: Creating a positive and supportive environment where everyone thrives.

• 📚 Embrace the learning process: Cultivate deep-seated curiosity and growth mindset over fixed mindset.

While innovation and disruption are crucial, sustainable impact is more about the long game. It's about:

Navigating the Challenges of Impact

The pursuit of impact isn't without its challenges. In my :journey: to leadership including in this role, I've often times faced pressure to innovate, the constant scrutiny, and the weight of responsibility (took on template launches 2.5 years ago knowing nothing about WLT)....all of which becomes overwhelming especially if sustained for long periods of time. These can lead to burnout, difficult trade-offs, and even ethical dilemmas. Navigating these complexities requires a balance of opportunity-seeking and risk management.

Measuring What Matters

While frameworks like GQM, OKR, and HEART can help quantify impact, it's essential to remember that not everything that counts can be counted. Sometimes, the most significant impact lies in the intangible - the relationships built, the lives influenced, and the inspiration ignited.

A Personal Story of Unexpected Impact

Fifteen years ago, at a startup, I hired a fresh graduate passionate about front-end development. Our code was written in Classic ASP, hosted on IIS 7 with MSSQL as the backend (talk about the good old days). We knew the page took too long to load (~8 seconds) and agreed that optimization was necessary. The new hire tried standard optimization techniques - compressing css, js, images, implementing gzip compression, etc. and they all helped but did not substantially improve page load times. After going through bunch of stackoverflow discussions, she took on a challenge to look at the database side of things and found two things that ended up bringing substantial improvement to page load times - over usage of select * queries and subpar database indexing. She ended up fixing them herself knowing nothing about databases. This experience was incredibly motivating not only because we all learned new things during those weeks but also because it improved customer satisfaction by reducing bounce rate, improving conversion and thus revenues.

Key Takeaways

As Albert Einstein wisely said, "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." This reminds us that true impact often transcends metrics and data i.e. it isn't always quantifiable. So two key takeaways I'd share with you are - i) identify the asymmetric opportunities - those with massive upside and limited downside and ii) bring lasting positive change for you and everyone around you.